Aeon T1 addition: heavy tank

@kalethequick It seems more for me like "turn off one shortcoming for one nation. Shortcoming that is ruining this nation for most users." I am basing my words on this post and this one https://forum.faforever.com/topic/2673/why-is-aeon-1-disliked-2-inaccessible-and-3-most-unfun-units-but-4-most-fun-units/33

Now if this type of change will end up making even less players use Aeon, then of course, this was a bad idea. I might be wrong.

@Cyborg16 As I said: "very easy and not fun way to adress those problems". In the same time, no law obliges to add more and more complexity all the time. Game is seen as quite complex already. We have sniper gameplay already in t3 level.

@Valki Having shield would certainly add in faction diversity. Making people protect power and avoid stalling. In the same time not makeing nation impossible to use on big open maps.

@wikingest I didn't mean to imply you intended to remove all faction diversity. Just that it reminded me of the feature from another game.

And is aurora actually that bad?

You must deceive the enemy, sometimes your allies, but you must always deceive yourself!

@kalethequick "is aurora actually that bad?" This is THE QUESTION. If we could answer that objectively...

I play quite a lot of Aeon on multiplayer. But not because of Aurora. I like other parts of this nation. Aurora losing range and earning hp would not bother me at all, I would rather be glad.

Now personally I dont see myself playing Aeon on big open map on 1v1. As on 1v1 you dont choose the map, I would not use it at all on 1v1. Changeing aurora could change that. (There is still problem with t1 navy, but this is minor compared to Aurora.)

I think changeing Aurora would reduce game's diversity( as nations diversity), and as more people would use Aeon, would add on games diversity( as games played would have more diversity, more Aeon involved) . This is only my opinion. It might apply to some other players, or not.

@wikingest Consensus seems Aurora is balanced but not fun to play with or play against... except at high number, there is a critical mass where a deathball of Aurora is overpowered.

@valki perhaps this Is because it's general counter is a non land unit? T1 bombers. I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be the game, this counters that with caveat.

You must deceive the enemy, sometimes your allies, but you must always deceive yourself!

@valki Not fun why then? If Aurora is overpovered in critical mass or in small map or in narrow passage, and if Aurora is underpowered in big open maps... Then it is one strange balance. Althought we could say that in median, there is perfect balance 🙂

Needing so much micro (for example on big open maps), that most players cant use it, can be considered as balance problem too.

Reducing range and adding hp would solve all those problems. But if it is not broken, of course, dont fix it.

@wikingest no I agree, a game is meant to be fun - replacing Aeon T1 units to get more fun with sufficient micro opportunities and identity is good... But only if the volunteers patching the game would enjoy doing that.

Humanity would have gotten nowhere if we only fixed what was broken.

@valki said in Aeon T1 addition: heavy tank:

@cyborg16 said in Aeon T1 addition: heavy tank:

Aeon, "thematically", has single-purpose

That could advocate seperating the damage dealing from the tanking

Yes, partly this. My stats given above give the T1 heavy tank 50% more HP and 33% more damage than a Striker at 67% more cost. This will likely need tweaking. The idea is that in groups the Bear (if we call it that) is about as cost-effective as T1 medium tanks in tank battles, albeit slower.

We have sniper gameplay already in t3 level.

Yes. At T1 it would play differently since the ACU has a bigger role. Maybe too much complexity, but Aurora are already a complexity.

Aurora losing range and earning hp would not bother me at all, I would rather be glad.

Sure, we could make the Aurora another T1 medium tank and be done with it. Except various people like faction diversity.

Having shield would certainly add in faction diversity. Making people protect power and avoid stalling.

No. At T2 this is the case: you need to budget more power if you want to build (mobile) shields. (Also for overcharge.) But at T1 power is significantly more expensive and balance already finely tuned (low-pgen land-spam builds or higher amounts for air and/or eco, or early power to rush gun). T1 mobile shields would likely make gun-ACU OP. Also the Aurora is weak to bombers on purpose; a cheesy way to counter bombers in the early game would make the Aurora even more OP.

@cyborg16 said in Aeon T1 addition: heavy tank:

No. At T2 this is the case: you need to budget more power if you want to build (mobile) shields.

He meant a personal shield for the Aurora, not a T1 mobile shield. That's why I upvoted that idea.

@cyborg16 There was never question about adding t1 mobile shields. We talked about adding shield on Aurora (personal shield), while reducing range to have similar caracteristics (hp) as other t1 tanks. But with more faction diversity.

"Sure, we could make the Aurora another T1 medium tank and be done with it. Except various people like faction diversity"
Faction diversity is fine, but people not playing one nation (on 1v1) because of that, is less fine.

Well, that idea is even more absurd: early tanks which have a big impact on power balance?

Gentlemen, I think we are missing the bigger picture here. What if the problem isn't the blessed Aurora, but rather the heathens?

We are overlooking a simple solution to the problem:
or stug life meme, whatever
T1 tank destroyers for the heathens 😄

You must deceive the enemy, sometimes your allies, but you must always deceive yourself!

@kalethequick tbh I thought about that too, I really hate that T1 arty is so powerful and ubiquitous as it partially fills the tank destroyer role. Aside from the blessed Aeon being cursed with bad artillery, it is sort of the only artillery that purely fulfills the sacred role of dedicated artillery.

Just dreaming here... but

  • Tank: Like the Striker, an all purpose tank with fast rotating turret
  • Tank Destroyer: Like a Aurora with a damage buff and no nerf to range. Or a sniper bot which is basically a tank destroyer... maybe we should stay away from Tank Destroyers also to avoid confusion with naval, and call them Sniper Bots or Sniper Tanks.
  • Artillery: Like the fervor, except without unit tracking. Real artillery should never hit a moving unit (in the game) but a few artillery should be able to quickly destroy a building
  • Raider: Like a Mantis with a speed buff range nerf cost reduction and hp nerf, a unit that is plentiful in number and fast, for raiding and countering Tank Destroyers Sniper units

Tbh this could be the start of a "Tank War" sim mod...
Edit: I want to clarify that I agree with @FtXCommando below that this is too much for the core game.

@cyborg16 said in Aeon T1 addition: heavy tank:

Well, that idea is even more absurd: early tanks which have a big impact on power balance?

Aeon is the difficult faction requiring a lot of micro already - what is wrong with adding more eco micro on top of that?

I thought the whole point here was making the faction approachable? Having to make 4 different units for 4 different roles with more micro on top is not going to make Aeon any easier for new players. And it isn't like the faction sucks at high level games so it doesn't need some buff from adding new units, strength will mostly have to come from making other aspects of the roster weaker.

Also the big problem I have here is cost, you are making a cheap T2 unit not a t1 unit

T1 land doesn't need any more new units. Save your effort for T1 naval.

put the xbox units in the game pls u_u

@zeldafanboy Ah, I see you are a man of culture as well.

You must deceive the enemy, sometimes your allies, but you must always deceive yourself!

The balance team (I don't speak for them) generally avoids adding new units where possible to keep FAF resemblant of base FA. There were only a few exceptions such as the T3 MAA and even those were controversial.

I understand you want it balanced for lower-rated players, but I think it is best to balance around how units are played at the top level. Lower rated players and even ones at my level really struggle with some basic concepts, so it is hard to say if it is due to it being harder to fight at a lower level, or just less experience in the matchup:

If an Aeon player plays 30 ladder games, and we say for the sake of argument that all factions are picked evenly, then he will gain experience against 'normal tank' factions 75% of the time. On the flip-side, a UEF player will face a 'range tank' faction (aeon) only 25% of the time. So when you're a new player with only 30 or so ladder games, it's quite often that an aeon player of the same skill level will have double the experience in a matchup. This is part of what I think contributes to new players having trouble against Aeon.

@evan_ said in Aeon T1 addition: heavy tank:

I think it is best to balance around how units are played at the top level.

Yes.

If you try to balance for low-rated players, what do you think would happen? High-rated players would figure out how to exploit the new units. The meta would change. Everyone else would try to copy what the high-rated players do. And then things would be broken again for the low-rated players.

The balance will always be "broken" for low-rated people. 99% of them would win 10% more games if they just made tiny, tiny changes to the way they played.